Voice AI cost estimator

Since 20 May 2026, HighLevel bills Voice AI in parts: a voice engine rate, a text-to-speech (voice) rate, LLM tokens, and phone minutes. This estimator adds them up and compares pay-per-use against the flat AI Employee plans.

Call volume

Calls per month

Average call length (minutes)

Call type (LC Phone rate)

Include one local number ($1.15/month)

Voice and model

Voice

LLM (price per 1M tokens)Input-token prices from HighLevel's table. Output tokens cost more, so treat this as a floor.

LLM tokens per call minuteOur assumption, not a HighLevel figure. Long prompts and knowledge bases push it up. Check real usage after a week.

The rates used

Component	Rate
Voice engine	$0.045/min (from 20 May 2026)
TTS: OpenAI or Cartesia	$0.015/min
TTS: ElevenLabs V2.5	$0.035/min
TTS: ElevenLabs V3	$0.17/min
Speech-to-speech: Gemini live / OpenAI realtime	$0.1 / $0.2 per min, flat
AI Employee Growth	$50/mo per location, includes 100 Voice AI minutes; overage at pay-per-use
AI Employee Unlimited	$97/mo per location, Voice AI unlimited subject to fair use
LC Phone, inbound US answered in app	$0.01165/min, billed in whole minutes
LC Phone, outbound US	$0.0166/min

HighLevel's formula: call minutes x (voice engine + TTS rate) + LLM token cost + phone charges. [AI Product Pricing (HighLevel help center), updated 2026-10-20; checked 2026-10-25] [LC Phone Pricing & Billing Guide, updated 2026-10-12; checked 2026-10-25]

What usually decides the cheapest option

Under about 100 minutes a month (a small business with a few calls a day after hours), pay-per-use is normally cheapest. A few dollars a month instead of $50.
Hundreds of minutes, the $97 Unlimited plan caps your Voice AI cost, but it also covers Conversation AI, Reviews AI and Content AI. If you use those too, it wins sooner.
Premium voices change the maths. ElevenLabs V3 is more than ten times the OpenAI/Cartesia TTS rate. Use the calculator before you pick a voice for a high-volume line.
Phone minutes are never included. Every plan pays LC Phone charges on top.

Keep test costs down

When we built demo receptionist agents through the API, we set a maximum call duration (300 seconds) on each one so a stuck test call couldn't run up minutes. Web-call testing in the builder needs no phone number. See the Voice AI receptionist guide.

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Facts last checked against official sources: 2026-10-25